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<title>Two Lies and a Lie by Squirrels_All_The_Way_Down</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020649">Two Lies and a Lie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squirrels_All_The_Way_Down/pseuds/Squirrels_All_The_Way_Down'>Squirrels_All_The_Way_Down</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bashir's Starfleet Medical exam, Episode: s02e22 The Wire, Episode: s03e20 Improbable Cause, Episode: s05e16 Doctor Bashir I Presume, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:35:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>478</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squirrels_All_The_Way_Down/pseuds/Squirrels_All_The_Way_Down</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bashir and Garak have different strategies for concealing the truth.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julian Bashir &amp; Elim Garak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Two Lies and a Lie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You should never tell the same lie twice,” says Garak smugly, and it’s all Julian can do to keep from laughing out loud. He’s been telling one lie, the same lie, all his life; every second, just by existing. In his nightmares, the lie is a cancerous, pustulous thing spreading its tendrils throughout his body, until he is only a lie in the shape of a man. </p>
<p>And he’s never slipped up, not once, not even when he was a teenager, not even in his first week at the Academy when he’d gotten truly drunk for the first time, not even to Palis, whom he’d expected to marry.</p>
<p><em> That arrogance is why you got that question wrong. </em>The Starfleet Medical oral exam. The postganglionic fiber that was really a preganglionic nerve. He’d been talking too fast, getting ahead of himself; he overstretched. It should have been an easy question; but they were all easy questions, for him. Half the questions were rote memorization anyway - how could he have known one was more obvious than the others?</p>
<p><em> You knew you were doing too well, making it look too easy. That’s why you got it wrong. </em>Julian has spent his whole life knowing he is simultaneously the most qualified person and the biggest imposter in any room. His reflexes, vision, strength - these were all carefully limited to two standard deviations above the norm. He’s not about to give himself away with some unexpected superpower. But his intelligence is harder to calibrate. In high school, he had a system. The night before every exam, he’d pick the questions he’d get wrong. He used a random number generator, so there was never any trace. But he’d gotten out of the habit sometime in his Academy years. The people around him were brilliant, too; why shouldn’t he be the best of the best?</p>
<p><em> Because you’re afraid of being the best. You wanted to settle for second. </em>That’s what he had told Elizabeth, anyway. But it’s not the pressure he’s scared of - he’s afraid that he wants it too badly. His head is filled with images of bombed out cities, humans mutated beyond recognition; the results of the crazed, engineered leaders of the Eugenics Wars. Maybe something slipped during the resequencing, someone messed up, and the wild ambition he’s felt all his life isn’t his, would invite calamity if left unchecked. So he’d given the wrong answer; he knew better than to trust himself with his own potential. A reckless, split-second decision that sent him veering off course.</p>
<p>
  <em> Are you trying to get yourself caught? </em>
</p>
<p>So when Garak tells Julian three stories of the cryptic Elim, then claims, <em> They were all true, especially the lies </em> , Julian understands better than anyone. <em> The trick to it, </em> he wants to say; says, over and over again in his head, <em> the best liars forget which lies are true. </em></p>
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